told me. "They were poor and the city was far away. I remember that she said he did not talk to her. She did not know whether it was the paralysis or whethel he just did not wish to talk." Mother rubbed the lobe of her right ear be- tween two fingers-a hahit she had when pensive-and said, "Your father was a very sociable man." Mother was still living in T all1pa, with Iny sister, but she call1e to New York to see ll1C and my wife, Helen, and our eleven-year-old son, Rafael, off, and she hrought a COP) of Father's baptislnal papers for ll1e to take along, and the L1St letter she received froll1 the old woman, announcing the death of his widowed sister. That was in 1933. She had not heard froIn Mian1an again. I knew I had no more relatives in Spain, for the old WOll1an had never ll1entioned any. I planned to spend a yeLll in Spclin, however, and I proll1ised to go to Galicia, look up Miall1an, find Father's grave, and talk to people in the aldca who ll1ight rell1ell1ber Father or the old WOll1an; I would take pictures to send back to Mother and ll1Y sister, and thus lay to rest the ghost that haunted all three of us. " A d " 1 " d M I " n so, saI to ot ler, you stopped writing after the old WOll1an d " d ' I I " " 1 n t ctnswer your ast etter r Mother sighed, as if the Inell10ry of those years were a hard rock so ell1- bedded in the past that it was too Inuch to drag up now. "Oh, no, I wrote sev- eral till1es. Though not too often, for I liked to send ten dollars, or at least five, with each letter, and-and, you k " now. There it was, the guilt. the old WOInan had had an invalid son dUll1ped on her, and what had we done to help? It had been her terrible task to turn hill1 over to hospitals and charity hOll1cs. Charity hOll1es! '-'1 e knew what they were in our country and could iInagine how ll1uch worse they were ln Spain. Even after the Second \V orld \Var, when ll1Y sister and I were both 111arned and had less pity for our- selves-after all, we had survived- we would often sit out on the porch of the house in Tall1pa late at night and talk ahout what Inust have happened after Father's slup reached Vigo. By the till1e we got to the last visit the old WOll1an paid hiIn, walking Inany ll1iles to Santiago only to sit before a ll1ute 111Lln who siInply stared ahead, we would decide it was foolish to lacerate oursel VLS; we had been kids, after all, and Mother did send what little ll10ney she could. One reason the old woman was still on our Ininds after the war was that Mother regularly sent packages of clothes to a Spanish family in Toulouse. Tho Llsc::lnds had crossed into France when the north of Spain fell to Fran- co's Army, and the cigar-ll1akers in r all1pa, supporters of the Republic, passed around the nall1es of faIniJies in exile now suffering at the hands of the French. Galicia had fallen ill1ll1ediately after the Civil \Var broke out, and often we would say to each other, "\Vhat if F ctther had lived, or the old wOll1an? \Ve would have been sending things to the Fascist side! " W E left N ew York in October and entered Spain at Hendaye. A sweet, round-faced old Basque took us in hand. I do not know what he said to the cuStOll1S ll1an, hut as soon as we walked away froll1 the window, our passports stall1ped, the CUStOll1S ll1an sll1iled and said "/1 mericanos?" and cleared our hags by ll1aking a chalk ll1ark on each. That was that, and the Civil Guards along the station plat- forll1 opened a path for us and the porter, and touched their hands to their shining black patent-leather hats. It was a strange feeling to know that I had arrived in Spain and was ll1erely a tourist and an All1erican. It was al- ll10St a rejection, for, of course, peo- ple ll1Y age and of ll1Y background in .) ,:: . .,'.' > ,"1.. ,f ") --" 53 Tall1pa always say "they" when we talk clbout AInericclns. Not ll1)' wife, who is New York-born, of Russian and Polish] ews, or ll1j son, who feels only All1erican. But shortly I felt very at hOll1e in Spain; only ll1Y clothes gave n1e a way in the sInall towns. After a quick look at Asturias, we settled down for the winter in Bar- celona. \Ve had a whole year in Spain dhccld of us, and there was no hurry to look up Miaman or anytlung else. F'or ll1onths, I scarcely" thought about Galicia. But when we counted up our ll10ney one day in ll1id-April, we de- cided for that reason and others to go hack home at the end of ] une, and I relnell1bered In) resolve to visit 111\ Llther's village and return with photo- graphs to show n1) f.lInily" \'T e decided we would sLlil for the States froll1 Vigo, ,-. the port from which 111V father had left and to whIch he returned, and a week later we took an overnight train to Madrid and froll1 there another overnight train to Vigo. 'There are four provinces in Galicia, and we were in ()rense-the southernll1ost 'lnd the onh one of the four that is land- bound-ec::lrly in the ll1orning. I tried to steel Inyself for ll1Y first look at the povel ty of Galicia, its out-of-the-way existence, and when I woke 111 our cOll1partll1ent I closed 111Y eyes for a > Î 1 . r / $. )- J ,>t . ':,;,; 1 ',, ';1 " ,x J . s ) .. J t j: : ). .." ,. W . , . "I'm drunk, and you know it Right?"